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New Mexico Tech Alumnus Finances New Investment Club, June 12, 2006

by George Zamora

Left to right: Peter Anselmo, chairman of the New Mexico Tech Department of Management; Peter Gerity, vice president of academic affairs at New Mexico Tech; M. Pat Miller, New Mexico Tech alumnus; Daniel López, New Mexico Tech President; and Cheryl Pulaski, director of advancement at New Mexico Tech.

SOCORRO, N.M., June 12, 2006 – A New Mexico Tech alumnus has donated $100,000 to the university to establish the Pat Miller Investment Group, an on-campus investment club that will allow Tech students the opportunity to make real-world financial investments in hopes of developing a self-sustaining diversified portfolio of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and money market securities.

M. Pat Miller, a 1961 graduate of New Mexico Tech, recently traveled across the country from his home in the Florida Keys to the research university’s campus in Socorro and met with Tech administrators and faculty to work out the specifics involved with setting up an ongoing investment club for interested students.

The Pat Miller Investment Group, named after its primary benefactor, will begin operating as a full-fledged student organization at New Mexico Tech as early as this coming fall semester, and will be administered through the university’s Department of Management.

“With his generosity and foresight, Mr. Miller has single-handedly created an enormous opportunity for New Mexico Tech students to gain first-hand experiences with investment strategies, which will allow them to better understand the mechanics of how investment strategies actually work,” said Peter Anselmo, associate professor of management and chairman of the management department at New Mexico Tech.

“This is practical knowledge gained that these students will be certain to use after they graduate from Tech,” Anselmo, who also serves as the new club’s faculty sponsor, added.

Membership in the Pat Miller Investment Group will be open to any student at New Mexico Tech, Anselmo said, but actual investing will be limited to students who have already taken and successfully completed an undergraduate course in either “Principles of Finance” or “Engineering Economics,” in order to ensure that they know the basics of financial investments.

The recently forged donation agreement between Miller and New Mexico Tech stipulates that annual earnings from the student-run investment account will be used to fund other activities within the university’s management department, such as setting up scholarships, equipment purchases, club promotions, social events, and re-investments.

During his recent meeting with New Mexico Tech administrators, Miller stated that he wanted to provide current Tech students with opportunities to learn first-hand about financial investments, which is something he didn’t know about when he got out into the “real world.”

Miller, who graduated from New Mexico Tech with a bachelor of science in petroleum engineering, already supports an academic scholarship program at the university which is named in his honor.

In addition, Miller has also consented to revisit the New Mexico Tech campus at least once a year to talk to the members of the Pat Miller Investment Group.